Christianity Today - A Light to the World?

Consider the following research results from a popular Christian research group:1

1) In a representative nationwide survey among born-again adults, none of the individuals interviewed said that the single most important goal in their life was to be a committed follower of Jesus Christ.

2) Born again Christians spend seven times as much time on entertainment as they do on spiritual activities.

3) Desiring to have a close personal relationship with God ranks just sixth among the 21 life goals surveyed, trailing such desires as "living a comfortable lifestyle."

4) October, 2006 -- "Born-again Busters (adults in their twenties and thirties) were somewhat less likely than their unsaved peers to illegally download music, to smoke, to view pornography, to purchase a lottery ticket, or to use profanity. However, young believers were actually more likely than non-believers to try to get back at someone and to have stolen something. Moreover, on 8 of the 16 [negative] behaviors, the profile of born-again Busters was virtually identical to that of non-born again Busters."

5) In 2008 -- "In fact, when evangelicals and non-evangelical born again Christians are combined into an aggregate class of born-again adults, their divorce figure is statistically identical to that of non-born-again adults: 32% versus 33%, respectively."

6) September, 2011 -- "Research indicates that most young [single] Christians are just as sexually active as their non-Christian peers, even though they are more conservative in their attitudes about sexuality."

Meg Flammang, project director of another Barna study conducted in 2002, said the following of the Christian divorce crisis:

We have found that in a lot of ways Christians are not living different lives than non-Christians, when we look at their behavior... It's hard for Christians to understand because it seems contrary to what people think would happen...We would love to be able to report that Christians are living very distinct lives and impacting the community, but ... in the area of divorce rates they continue to be the same.2

1. "The Year's Most Intriguing Findings," Barna Research Studies, 2010-2011

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The Twelve Tribes is a confederation of twelve self-governing tribes, composed of self-governing communities. We are disciples of the Son of God whose name in Hebrew is Yahshua. We follow the pattern of the early church in Acts 2:44 and 4:32, truly believing everything that is written in the Old and New Covenants of the Bible, and sharing all things in common.